Social Marketing of Mental Health Treatment

California's Mental Illness Stigma Reduction Campaign

Published in: American Journal of Public Health, Volume 109, No. 53, Supplement 3, pages S228-S235 (June 2019). doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305129

Posted on RAND.org on October 10, 2019

by Rebecca L. Collins, Eunice C. Wong, Joshua Breslau, M. Audrey Burnam, Matthew Cefalu, Elizabeth Roth

Objectives

To understand the processes involved in effective social marketing of mental health treatment.

Methods

California adults experiencing symptoms of probable mental illness were surveyed in 2014 and 2016 during a major stigma reduction campaign (n = 1954). Cross-sectional associations of campaign exposure with stigma, treatment overall, and 2 stages of treatment seeking (perceiving a need for treatment and use conditional on perceiving a need) were examined in covariate-adjusted multivariable regression models.

Results

Campaign exposure predicted treatment use overall (odds ratio [OR] = 1.82; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.17, 2.83). Exposure was associated with perceived need for services (OR = 1.64; 95% CI = 1.09, 2.47) but was not significantly associated with treatment use in models conditioned on perceiving a need (OR = 1.52; 95% CI = 0.78, 2.96). Exposure was associated with less stigma, but adjustment for stigma did not affect associations between exposure and either perceived need or treatment use.

Conclusions

The California campaign appears to have increased service use by leading more individuals to interpret symptoms of distress as indicating a need for treatment. Social marketing has potential for addressing underuse of mental health services and may benefit from an increased focus on perceived need.

Access further information on this document at American Journal of Public Health

Research conducted by

This report is part of the RAND Corporation External publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.